2 Year Anniversary
Yesterday was our 2 year wedding anniversary. I know it’s completely cliche to say this, but 2 years went by so fast!! I can’t believe it. I was thinking about our big day and I can seriously still remember every detail so vividly. It was a perfect day, all the hot pink, motorcycle driving, cotton candy & ice cream eating…everything. There’s seriously nothing I would have changed about it.
The best part, of course, was getting to marry my husband. Paul is seriously the perfect guy for me, he balances me out so well. I remember thinking when I first met him that I could never, ever marry him because he was way too mellow and quiet for me. Now I can appreciate just how great it is to be married to someone who always has his head about him and can calm me down in any situation. His patience is seriously astounding, and that’s a quality that I really admire in him. Best of all, I found as I came to know him better that Paul seriously has a wicked funny sense of humor and can always make me die laughing, even when I’m angry.
These 2 years have been the best of my life. The more time I spend with my husband the more I look back at every other guy I was ever with and think “why did I waste so much time on him?!” 
Marriage is way harder than I ever thought it would be, but it’s the most rewarding endeavor I’ll ever undertake, including motherhood…though that will for sure be a close second. Having someone you love with every little corner or your heart by your side through thick and thin is the most precious thing anyone can ever experience. Yes, I did just say precious, knowing full well how ridiculous and disgustingly sappy it sounds.
Here’s some of my favorite pictures from our wedding day:
Paul switching out my pink sapphire engagement ring with the gorgeous diamond ring he secretly bought for me as my wedding present. He carried it in his pocket for a month before our wedding for fear that I’d tidy up his room and find it. What a great surprise!!
Thanks for putting up with me, baby, I’m glad I suckered you into it before you realized just how great you are!
love, mary
7 Months Along
haha, now that I’m almost 8 months along I guess it’s time to post the 7 month picture:
Notice the comfortable curve of my spine – makes for a really pronounced waddle and oh-so-comfortable sleeping!
love, mary
Worth It
All right, last night I realized the one thing about pregnancy that makes it worth all of the cruddy stuff when it happens: Paul’s face when he puts his hands on my tummy and feels his daughter kicking. Seriously, there’s nothing like it. Everything just lights up and he gets this excited-yet-loving & soft look on his face, and it just makes my heart swell up, as cheesy as that sounds. For a minute every single discomfort I’ve experienced is totally irrelevant. Maybe there’s a smidgin of hope for a second one someday, after all.
love, mary
Baby Stroller
Ok, I forgot to put these up as well…just the pics of our little travel system for the baby. The pattern is cute, but the colors are a little bland. I wanted to go with the pink & brown one that just makes your heart go “aw!” but practicality (Paul) won out so we don’t have to get a new one in the future.
Paul’s First Father’s Day
I’ve been meaning to put pictures of Paul’s first Father’s Day on here, too. He had a really great day, if kind of uneventful. We went to church, where during most of priesthood the men got treated with a nice lunch with love from the relief society. After church we headed over to Sarah’s house, since they were out of town and we don’t have TV yet. We took a nap together, then I started on dinner while Paul started watching the pre-game show to the Lakers playoff game that he’d been so excited to see. We had all of his favorites for dinner – steaks, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob & canteloupe. And tapatio hot sauce, of COURSE!
I guess this is supposed to be an “it’s delicious!” face…?
For dessert we’d splurged and bought a cheesecake, also his favorite.
He ate it while watching the Lakers lose the game. 
Here’s the first daddy-daughter picture of Paul and Elliot…super attractive.
I bought him a pair of sunglasses that he’d wanted off of ebay for his father’s day present, but they hadn’t come by father’s day, so I don’t have a picture of them. All in all it was a nice, relaxing day, and he was even a good sport about his favorite team losing in the playoffs…after 20 minutes or so.
love, mary
Finally, Some Condo Pictures!
Sorry for the long absence again. I’ve been hanging out with my “sister-in-law” Amber, who just had surgery and needed a little help with their four kids all day. It’s funny how when you’re Aunt Mary you can kind of do no wrong; I disciplined them and made them do their chores and all of that, but at the end of the visit the kids still loved me and thought I was a nice person. Moms aren’t that lucky, poor things…ah, well, my time is coming for me.
Anyway, I’ve been meaning to put these pictures of our condo up for weeks, so here we go.
First off, here’s the pre-everything-put-away view of our living room & dining room. Can you say YIKES with me? We could barely move for about a week or so.
And here’s 3 of the 4 members of our moving team carrying my wicked heavy apothecary desk up to the loft. I’ve got to put major props in here to those guys, I don’t know how they got through moving all of our freaking crap up all of those stairs!
All the rest are post-everything-put-away pics. First is the view of our living room from the front door, which is right next to the TV.
Another view…
To the left of the front door are the stairs up to the loft. Khai is playing Vanna and showing it off. All of the furniture under the stairs is going to go; mostly stuff that our landlord left for us that we have no room for. I’ve been nagging Paul to get it all out – I imagine that it’ll take another 3 weeks or so before he’ll actually do it.
All my craft stuff at the top of the stairs
Our loft office. I put that huge desk together myself, though I will not divulge the details on how long it took me and what parts didn’t get finished, hehe. The couch is a remnant of our landlord and I personally think that it’s gotta go – too big for the space – but Paul likes it so I’ll save that battle for a few months.
Another view of the loft
View from the living room down the hall & of the dining room
Dining room. The chandelier situation makes me crazy; it’s clear over to the left of the room so I can’t have it centered over our table. Plus I think it’s ugly. I’ll get to resolving it someday.
My tiny little kitchen, which actually has a ton of storage space.
Down the hall there’s the guest bathroom/laundry closet, which I didn’t get pictures of because, frankly, it’s ugly & was messy when I was taking pictures. Straight ahead down the hall from the dining room is the guest room slash nursery. Here’s the view from the door. That’s a baby picture of Paul on the wall there, which I think is pretty much adorable. My mom made the quilt on the bed – lambs – and the painting is of the rhyme “mary, mary, quite contrary”. I think we’ll build off of those and make the room kind of a nursery rhyme theme, if I ever get to really decorating it.
Here’s the rest of the room, complete with the glider chair that is my favorite piece of furniture ever. Landlord left the weight set…totally appropriate for the nursery, don’t you think? I want to put it upstairs where that couch was so Paul can access it when he wants to without being in the middle of the nursery. The closet is overflowing with all of our baby goods from garage sales and baby showers. The only thing we’re missing is the crib, which I tried to kind of make up for by setting up the pack ‘n play. Do ya think I’m getting nesting syndrome here?
To the left of the nursery is our bedroom. Here’s the view from the door. Those pieces of wood in the corner are our bed, which will likely never get put together, hehe.
View from the bathroom…
And here’s the master bathroom. The toilet & shower are to the left and the door on the right is our closet, where I stashed everything to make our room look clean & organized.
Thus concludes the tour of the new Lamas casita. We hope you enjoyed your stay!
love, mary
Hanging Out with the Chirinos Fam
Yesterday we had Paul’s cousin Carlos and his four kids over to hang out with us all day. We LOVE hanging out with them, they are so fun! Amber just had surgery so she couldn’t make it, but we all had a good time even so. We went out to lunch and then Carlos wanted to go shopping for a baby present, so we headed to the mall. I have no idea where any baby gear stores are out here, so we tried the mall first. No luck on baby gear, but the kidlets did discover this carousel in the middle of the mall. Carlos foolishly promised them a ride if they all behaved while we shopped – when we finally got down to it the rides were $3 each kid!! Highway robbery! He kept his bargain, though, and they loved it.
Walking through the mall. Carlos saw this picture and said it looked like him walking with his 3 kids, haha.
Brianna & Danny decided to do the teacup thing and I thought they were going to puke for sure, especially when they’d just eaten lunch.
Paul and Carlos were dying of laughter watching them…great dad behavior.
Faith & Zeke settled for tamer rides on the 2nd tier.
Faith helped me mix up the ingredients for homemade ice cream before we headed out for swimming at the pool one building away from us. I was trying to get a candid shot but she spotted the camera and hammed it up completely – the girl sells cute like it’s her job!
Danny was loving the cannonball thing
And getting chucked by Uncle Paul
Zeke & Faith can’t swim yet, so they stayed by the steps. We all had a great time.
Afterward we went back to our condo and ate the homemade strawberry ice cream which, if I do say so myself, was delicious. I am SO happy that I get to use my ice cream maker again, there’s seriously nothing better.
Carlos and Amber are two of the most generous people I know, they are so good to us. Carlos really, really wanted to buy us a baby gift so we ended up at Target, where he bought us our whole travel set – stroller and car seat! That in and of itself was like $200 and we were so excited and grateful. He wasn’t satisfied, however, and would NOT leave until he bought us more stuff. His ideas kept getting more and more grandiose (from bottles & diapers to another pack & play because ours is minorly broken) until we finally agreed on a bedding set, which we need but is another $70. We then rushed him out before he sighted something else he just had to buy. I felt guilty accepting such huge gifts from him but he was so excited to buy it for us and honestly would not leave the store until we agreed. I’ll get a picture of the travel set when I set it up tomorrow. I’m so excited about it, I swear I’m going to strap it into my car right now. Thank you SO much, Carlos and Amber, we really appreciate it!!
love, mary
Catching Up – Aidan’s Birthday
Last weekend was my nephew Aidan’s 6th birthday, and we went over to their house to join in the festivities. I love this kid; he’s got more energy than a nuclear power plant. We got there and he was in full spiderman gear, flinging imaginary webbing all over us.
Here’s the culinary masterpiece cake that Sarah made for the event, it was delicious! Aidan specifically wanted gumballs on his cake and Sarah didn’t have time before the party to get some, so uncle Paul was AWESOME and went to like 4 different stores trying to find some. He finally found them in the next city over, and there were like 250 in the container, but Aidan was stoked so it was worth it.
Aidan is in that odd stage of childhood when he grimaces more than smiles if he’s prepped for the picture, so we spent a few minutes shouting out things like “underpants!” to get a genuine smile from him.
Aidan loves to show off his buffness, even though girls still have cooties. He busted out twelve pushups for us…I don’t think I can do that even without the pregnant gut.
Showing off the killer shades he got from his sister Haley. He also got a super soaker from Aunt Ally & Uncle Travis, a funny magnet face kit from Grandma Janet & Grandpa Steve (my mom & dad), an h2o-powered corvette toy from Grandma Gail & Grandpa Phil, Pokemon cards from his brother Mason and a green triceritops from build-a-bear from his mom & dad. Sarah said that when they went to build-a-bear and were trying to think up a name for said stuffed toy to put on its “birth certificate” he was having a hard time coming up with something. She was trying to point out its different attributes to help him out, like the green color, the dinosaur aspect and its 3 horns, and all of a sudden his face lit up and he said “I know! Horny!” hahahahaha, I love it. She talked him into Snapper, instead, like a good mom would…I would’ve let him stick with Horny and laugh about it with me in ten or fifteen years.
After the presents orgy Haley and her cousin Jack (who is almost 2 and already knows the whole alphabet!) entertained us with their dancing for a while. Haley got a new dress from Grandma Gail and was obsessed with the twirling aspect. Remember the days when our primary teachers bribed us to be good by promising a twirling display at the end of class?
love, mary
Catching Up – PHS Graduation
Ok, it’s time for some pictures on here; I finally went through the camera and realized that there are quite a few that I’ve missed.
My little sister graduated from high school a couple of days before I left. I couldn’t make my mom suffer through it alone (poor dad was down with kidney pain) so I went with her; it actually turned out to be not that bad. The speakers kept it short and sweet. I did, however, spend lots of time watching the grads and remembering why it was that I was so excited to get out of high school…and why I’m excited that I will no longer be running into random people from high school at Macey’s, the mall, etc. It’s easy to only remember the good times after 5 years, but 5 minutes watching hormones rage brought all the other stuff back.
Here’s some pics from that including quite possibly the best toothless picture of me of all time:
I like this one because Leah’s grinning like an idiot for no apparent reason, hehe.
Ah, the excitement of holding a folder that doesn’t actually hold your diploma in case you do something like moon the camera before the whole ceremony is over.
I swear my mom did a victory dance in the parking lot, now that she’s done with Provo school district forever and ever, hallelujah, hallelujuh
This is the boy I’ve had picked out for Leah to marry since…well, forever. Luke Rowley. If for no other reason than I can then be kind of related to the whole Rowley family, whom I LOVE. Luke just got called to the Manchester, England mission. Good luck Luke!
Hahaha, I seriously love this picture. Leah & I have this running joke post-accident that I’ve got the beauty and she’s got the brains; here’s proof. (Erin and/or Lori, make Joanna come in and see this picture – she’ll die laughing)
Venting
Ok, I just have to take a really selfish minute here to vent about how much it SUCKS to be pregnant. For those of you with weak stomachs and/or some lingering desire to experience this 9-month confinement (Erin, this means you!), stop reading here. I’ll write something positive for you another time.
I pulled out my long-forgotten copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting last night, hoping that it would get me out of my I-hate-my-body-right-now slump. YIKES. Here’s a short list of “possible symptoms from your seventh month” (edited a little bit because hey, some of this is just too yucky for blogs):
Achiness in the lower abdomen/sides of abdomen, Constipation, Heartburn, indigestion, flatulence, bloating, headaches, faintness, dizziness, nasal congestion & occasional nosebleeds, ear stuffiness, bleeding gums, leg cramps, backache, edema of ankles & feet, edema of hands & face, varicose veins, itchy abdomen, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, Braxton Hicks contractions, clumsiness, enlarged breasts, continued absentmindedness, overheating, sciatica.
Ya. Just a short list. Which I happen to be experiencing about 90% of on a regular basis. Believe it or not, I kept reading after this. When I reached the part that actually said “Cheer up. You have less than 3 months left until delivery, when you’ll be able to bid a grateful good-bye to pregnancy” I literally almost chucked the book across the room. Who IS this person who wrote this?! Had to have been a man, right? I dare him to say that to any 7-months-plus-pregnant woman to her face.
Anyway, just had to get that out there. That’s the toughest thing about being out here…no one to complain to but Paul, who is way more optimistic than anyone should be.
love, mary
